"A Change for the Worst"

(Register & Bee)
To the editor:
After the last letter I wrote concerning our LifePoint hospital, I was summoned to a small meeting in Danville with William Carpenter, the CEO from Tennessee, as well as the local CEO, Art Doloresco, and former local CEO Jess Judy. I understand they held a number of such meetings aimed at putting out the fires of discontent.
In my group, they offered urgent promises about fixing the things wrong at LifePoint’s Danville Regional Medical Center and working hard to win the shattered confidence of the community. I try always to assume the best about people, so I accepted their promises and waited.That was two months ago, on Jan. 22. What’s happened since then?The main thing that has happened is that Danville Regional, after enjoying decades of top ratings (and even commendations) from the accreditation panels of the Joint Commission, has in effect been placed on probation. Under LifePoint management, Danville Regional is now operating under a “preliminary denial of accreditation.”

It is nothing short of a disgrace.

How can this be, when I heard the CEO of this $2 billion hospital chain sit and state that everything possible was being done to fix the problems? His underlings sat there and nodded in agreement. How can things be so horribly wrong when they had been so very right? Keep in mind that Danville Regional was at the top of its game when LifePoint bought it less than two years ago.
To say the least, my confidence is shaken after personally listening to such bold assurances two months ago. The men I met with made a big point of insisting that Danville Regional is as much our community hospital as it was before it was sold to LifePoint. But do they mean what they say? It’s as if they do not understand one of the basics we all learn in our life experiences - we can never fix our problems until we admit we have them.
The first thing LifePoint should do is make public the Joint Commission report, including details about the areas of the hospital that flunked the inspection. Doloresco called those points of failure “a private matter between me, the hospital and the commission,” according to a news story. Such an arrogant statement has no place at the table.
As a matter of public health and safety, we at least deserve to know the areas of the hospital that are in trouble. With that information, the public can make more informed decisions about which services are safe at Danville Regional.
Meanwhile, it is high time for the men who secretly sold our hospital and got us into this situation to come forward with our $200 million and help us find a solution.

COY HARVILLE
Danville

Citizens Commission website update

So much for an open forum...

First, the link to the archives of public comments on the Citizens Commission website was removed.
Bad, but not terrible, because the old links to the archive pages still worked. So I posted them on this blog.

Today? Click on one of the links below and it takes you a big white page with "The page cannot be found"

Oh well. I guess it was too good of an idea. Hopefully, members of the Citizens Commission will come to this blog to keep on top of public comment related to events at DRMC.

Citizens Commission website....public comments disappeared

Anyone know what happened to the archive of public comments on the Citizens Commission website?
http://www.danville-va.gov/page.asp?menuid=2816&sub1menuid=2841&sub2menuid=10761

Until we figure it out, here are links that I have to the archive pages:
Mar 14
http://www.danville-va.gov/upload/images/City-TV%2020/Hospital%20Comments%20%20March%2014th.pdf
Mar 15
http://www.danville-va.gov/upload/images/City-TV%2020/Hospital%20Comments%20March%2015th.pdf
Mar 16
http://www.danville-va.gov/upload/images/City-TV%2020/Hospital%20Comments%20March%2016th.pdf
Mar 19
http://www.danville-va.gov/upload/images/City-TV%2020/Hospital%20Comments%20March%2019th.pdf
Mar 20
http://www.danville-va.gov/upload/images/City-TV%2020/Hospital%20Comments%20March%2020th.pdf

"A lost opportunity"

Danville Register & Bee - editorial
March 19, 2007

Danville Regional Medical Center missed a huge opportunity last week to silence some of its critics. It was a misstep that shouldn’t go unnoticed.

Last week, the hospital announced that it had received a “preliminary denial of accreditation” from the Joint Commission, a national health care accreditation organization.

Here’s what Danville Regional’s CEO, Art Doloresco, said about that in a hospital news release: “Danville Regional Medical Center is accredited today, and we have every intention to remain accredited. The hospital will continue to participate in the Medicare and other payor programs while it works to address the requirements for improvement. While we have considerable work to do, the Joint Commission was complimentary of the effort of our staff and physicians and our commitment to fulfill the mission of the Medical Center to provide excellent healthcare. We will work in partnership with the Joint Commission to uphold the high standards of safe, quality patient care.”

But when Doloresco was asked exactly what areas had concerned the Joint Commission, he told a reporter for this newspaper that it was a “private matter between me, the hospital and the commission.”

A private matter? Really? Danville’s only hospital has received a “preliminary denial of accreditation” and it’s a private matter?

LifePoint Hospitals Inc. has taken a lot of criticism in this community for not only its management of Danville Regional Medical Center, but for the sale of the hospital itself. In fairness, though, it’s not LifePoint’s fault the hospital was sold.

But everything that’s happened since the hospital sale was finalized in July 2005 is on
LifePoint, and here’s the opportunity that was missed. Telling the community what the Joint Commission found wrong during its on-site inspection, what was being done to fix the problems and how LifePoint would make sure this never happens again would have raised

LifePoint’s stature in the community it claims to want to serve.
Openness in the face of bad news builds confidence. In this case, it could have finally put LifePoint on the public relations offensive in Danville.

Calling the preliminary denial of accreditation at Danville’s only hospital a “private matter” will do nothing to improve LifePoint’s standing among the people it hopes to win over. It’s too bad LifePoint has missed an opportunity of this magnitude.

http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB%2FMGArticle%2FDRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350289737&path=%21news%21opinion

New letters to the editor posted (Mar 16)

"No accountability?"

and

"What about most of us?"

Read them here:
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB%2FMGArticle%2FDRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350238147&path=!news!editor

"Probe cites hospital weak spots"

Commission finds areas of Danville Regional that need to be improved to be accredited.

Danville Register & Bee
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

DANVILLE - Danville Regional Medical Center’s status as a fully accredited institution could change in the near future if certain improvements are not made.
Danville Regional sent out a news release Wednesday afternoon verifying that it has received a “Preliminary Denial of Accreditation” from The Joint Commission, which is the largest nonprofit health care accrediting body responsible for evaluating the quality of care at hospitals across the United States.
Commission spokeswoman Elizabeth Zhani said Wednesday that the evaluation is “not final,” adding her group is still reviewing the results of a survey it conducted Feb. 13-16.
“At this time, (Danville Regional) is still fully accredited,” she said.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) use commission accreditations as a basis for determining which hospitals qualify for Medicare or Medicaid reimbursements.
But Zhani said it is ultimately up to that federal agency to make this decision and a lack of commission accreditation does not necessarily mean a hospital will no longer receive these reimbursements.
Danville Regional CEO Art Doloresco said Wednesday that the commission surveyors found some areas the hospital needed to improve that could prevent it from being fully accredited.
“We are already working hard to make the improvements that are required,” he said in the hospital news release.
When asked to elaborate, Doloresco described the areas of improvement as a “private matter between me, the hospital and the commission.”

Read the rest of the article at http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB%2FMGArticle%2FDRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350219666&path=!news

Now available...Citizens Commission Website!

Here is a link to the Citizens Commission website...

http://www.danville-va.gov/page.asp?menuid=2820&sub1menuid=2824&sub2menuid=10761

In addition to contact information for each of the commission members, there is also a "Public Comment Form" and a "Comments" archive.

I encourage you to visit their site often and provide them with valuable information to assist them in their mission. Please encourage others you know who may not visit this blog to visit the Commission's site....it's very important that they get feedback from all levels in the Danville region (including employees, patients, and the general public).

"Preliminary Denial of Accreditation"

That is Joint Commission's verdict on LPNT-DRMC.

Not Accredited...

Not "Provisionally Accredited"...

Not even "Conditionally Accredited"....

Preliminary Denial of Accreditation.

According to Joint Commission's website:
Preliminary Denial of Accreditation results when there is justification to deny accreditation to the organization as usually determined by the number of not compliant standards that exceed established thresholds at the time of survey. The decision is subject to appeal prior to the determination to deny accreditation; the appeal process may also result in a decision other than Denial of Accreditation.
http://www.jointcommission.org/GeneralPublic/Decisions.htm

Don't forget...

The Citizen's Committee meets tonight (Mar 13).
The meeting will be held at the Danville Municipal Building conference room (instead of at the hospital). The meeting is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. tonight.

Accreditation countdown...

Week #4....still no word.

"Second verse...same as the first...."

Thanks to Steve from Ringgold, I've been doing some interesting reading about Palo Verde Hospital in California.
Take a moment to do some reading about their transition from Lifepoint back to a community-based hospital. I would recommend visiting this page on their site:
http://www.mypvh.org/Archive.asp
Scroll down to "PVHD Board Minutes" and then select 05/05/2005 (page 2, section III).

When Lifepoint exited the picture in January of 2006, a new management team took over. From other sources I have read, the new management had to deal with quite a few issues just to survive...a 25% reduction in staff (including key managers), litigation with their medical staff and the physical plant was in disrepair. And, they were paying exorbitant contract pay rates to keep nurses....sound familiar?

Not knowing the full story of Palo Verde, I am certainly not saying that it is an apples-to-apples comparison (they are a much smaller hospital, for one), but it is worth reading just the May 5, 2005 board minutes to hear familiar refrains.

Time to make your voice heard...

Committee seeks input on hospital
The group probing problems at Danville Regional Medical Center is planning public forums and a Web site.
Danville Register & Bee
Friday, March 9, 2007
DANVILLE - The Citizen’s Committee Related to the Danville Regional Medical Center hopes to have at least three public forums so residents can voice their opinions about the hospital’s quality of care.
Committee Chairman Jim Houser said he wants at least one hearing to take place in Danville, Pittsylvania County and Caswell County, N.C., because those are the three localities served by the hospital.
He said the city’s information technology department also is building a special Web site where people can share their thoughts about the hospital if they do not want to testify at a public meeting.
“(Mayor Wayne Williams) wanted for us to report what the public believes is or is not working with the hospital,” Houser said at the committee’s first official meeting Thursday night at the hospital, just two days after Williams formally introduced the group at a City Council meeting.
The seven committee members are currently working out the details, such as the time and place, for the hearings and hope to have a special meeting where hospital employees can share their feelings anonymously.
The committee also reviewed a recent batch of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems data that gave Danville Regional an overall quality score of 3.46 on a scale of 0-4. Bill Keith, chief operating officer at Danville Regional, said this data is collected by a private contractor and used by the federal government to rank hospitals on 13 different fields.
The hospital had an overall quality score of 3.29 in August and the average LifePoint hospital had an overall quality score of 3.28. LifePoint Hospitals Inc. completed its $210 million acquisition of Danville Regional Medical Center on June 30, 2005.
Danville Regional scored above the average LifePoint score in six fields, including a nurse’s ability to explain things in a way a patient could understand and a staff member’s ability to explain the uses for new medicine.
Committee member Linda Green thanked Keith for explaining the data but said the commission needed more information to evaluate the hospital particularly when it came to emergency room wait times, the amount of patients leaving without treatment, employee satisfaction and patient-to-staff ratios.
“When I was talking about metrics (at a brief informal meeting Tuesday), I was talking about standard benchmarks we can use to compare the hospital to other hospitals,” she said, adding she wanted data specific to hospitals that are the same size as Danville Regional Medical Center and located in similar areas.
Each committee member said they had already received several calls about the hospital since the group’s formation.
The committee is asking city clerk Annette Crane to take the minutes of its meetings instead of Danville Regional CEO Art Doloresco, who volunteered for the job at the group’s Tuesday meeting.
The group also is going to hold their regular, open meetings at a Danville Municipal Building conference room instead of at the hospital. The group’s next meeting is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. Tuesday.

Taking the message to the people

Hospital CEO speaks to seniors about mistakes, changes
Art Doloresco announced that there will be a groundbreaking next week for a vault at the Radiation Oncology Center.
Register & Bee
Thursday, March 8, 2007
DANVILLE - After speaking to a group of senior citizens gathered Wednesday at Ballou Recreation Center, Art Doloresco said he wished he could spend all his time in those types of meetings.
The seniors had come together for their weekly luncheon and to hear Doloresco, chief executive officer of Danville Regional Medical Center, talk about the mistakes the hospital has made since LifePoint purchased it in 2005 and to assure them that the hospital cares about them as much as their doctors and nurses do.
“There have been a lot of changes,” he said, “and some of them, frankly, weren’t that good, but now we’re backtracking and trying to change that.”
Doloresco cited the opening of the fifth floor of the Landon Wyatt Jr. Tower and the future opening of the sixth floor of the tower as positives.
“When we’re finished, all the patient care from the old part of the building will be in a new environment, which is better for the patients and staff,” he said.
Doloresco also announced that there will be a formal groundbreaking next week for a vault at the Radiation Oncology Center, which will house a new linear accelerator to better treat cancer patients.
He credited the teamwork at the hospital for bringing about improvements in the Emergency Department, where wait times and the number of patients who leave without being seen have decreased.
“The entire effort was a team effort,” Doloresco said. “We have some really great people.”
Citing a change in an old policy as a positive, he said that until recently applications for employment were not taken on Fridays, but that has now been changed.
“I’ve seen hospitals in much worse situations, but this one is very resilient and has people who work very hard,” Doloresco said.
He admitted that there are times when Danville Regional is short on nurses, but said the hospital is “beefing up the staffing to cover as many situations as we can.”
“We have probably had 80 to 85 nurses leave, but we have recruited 50 to 60,” Doloresco said.
The audience had very few questions for Doloresco, although one person complimented the hospital on new pre-admission procedures and one complained about a food tray that couldn’t be reached.
Doloresco said the same problem with a tray happened recently in his father’s room, and he said if that ever happened again at Danville Regional to call and let him know.

What do you think? Should we make this our new slogan?

Letter to the Editor - "Not all that much longer?"

To the editor:
Less than two years ago, Danville Regional Medical Center was a nonprofit hospital. Its main focus was health care and expansion to provide broader health care. Now with LifePoint Hospitals Inc. at the helm, it has a split focus - health care and profits. The skilled doctors and nurses of this area can certainly handle the health care side, but judging from its first 19 months, LifePoint could use some schooling on the business side.
Anyone with a miniscule amount of business savvy knows that to be successful, a company must have quality employees who believe in their product and trust their employer.
LifePoint has breezed through several CEOs and it replaced a state-of-the-art computer system with one that actually makes it easy for patients not to get charged for expensive procedures, in addition to being slow and cumbersome to work on. LifePoint has allowed nurses, technicians and other staff members with years of experience to resign from departments that are already understaffed, without so much as a thank-you, would you reconsider or an exit interview. Then it brought nurses and staff in from outside at double pay to fill in.Maybe that’s LifePoint’s strategy. If they treat people poorly enough, employees will leave on their own accord, saving LifePoint from having to have layoffs and pay unemployment. Then it will be able to say, “We didn’t go in and slash and burn jobs, the people in Danville just couldn’t handle change.” When you force people to work in a condescending, secretive environment, they cannot help but worry and speculate about their future, neither of which is good for morale or allows them to take pride in their work and employer. Your employees are your greatest asset, and if you continue to treat them as a second-rate liability, they will eventually learn to act as such. Danville Regional is certainly getting its fair share of press, but can anything more than lip service be done? I cannot help but believe that if this were the old nonprofit Danville Regional, the groundswell from the staff and community would elicit more concrete, productive actions from Danville City Council. I also believe that if the five who sold the hospital were true leaders - and truly had what was best for the community at heart - they would have stepped up long before now to try to right their wrong. That being said, who among us has the courage and fortitude to actually step up and get the ball rolling?
Ideally, I would like to see a committee made up of Pete Castiglione, Sherman Saunders, Danny Marshall, Bill Fuller and Coy Harville. Seated before them and answering questions would be LifePoint’s current CEO, Art Doloresco, and the five local business leaders who got us into this mess. Actually though, a little research might forgo the need for that type of meeting. In just a couple of hours, I was able to glean some eye opening facts from the Internet.
There is an incredible blog on the Internet dedicated to Danville Regional and the LifePoint fiasco. Dozens of links to business, news and health care Web sites provide some interesting facts about LifePoint and the changes at Danville Regional. A little reading and a few mouse clicks will cause anyone to have concern for the future of our hospital.
STEVE
Ringgold

EDIT: Hey Steve from Ringgold....thanks for mentioning the blog in your letter!

Citizens Committee Named

Hospital commission takes shape
Danville Register & Bee
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

DANVILLE - Seven Dan River Region residents have been tasked with finding out exactly what is wrong with the Danville Regional Medical Center and figuring out how to fix it.
“Every one of you will be able to offer a truly objective recommendation that our community can take to heart,” Mayor Wayne Williams said Tuesday night as he introduced the Citizens Committee to Danville City Council.
Williams told the group that he wanted them to hold a series of meetings with community members over the next several weeks to discuss what is both good and bad about the care offered at the hospital, especially since LifePoint Hospitals Inc. purchased it in July 2005.
The hospital commission would then use this information to come up with a list of key problems the hospital faced with its quality of care and work with LifePoint and an outside organization to come up with ways to address them.
“(This task will be) immensely complicated and I do not envy you at all,” Danville Regional CEO Art Doloresco told the group, adding he would be happy to provide the commission with any information it wanted and even volunteered to take minutes of its meetings.
Williams told the commission that he wanted it to provide council with its final report in the next 90 days and that he wanted regular updates on the commission’s work to take place at every council meeting. He then walked out the door and let the group get to work.
Commission members include Jim Houser, Clarissa Knight, David Caldwell, Arlene Creasy, Linda Green, Samuel Griffith and Robert Whitt.
Within 45 minutes, the group had chosen Houser, an environmental health specialist with the Virginia Department of Health, and Knight, an assistant superintendent with Pittsylvania County Public Schools, as its co-chairs.
“I’m looking at three things: accountability, plain truth and a vision for the future,” Houser said, adding that his biggest concern was to divide “what has been sensationalized from what is the factual truth.”
The group has scheduled its first formal meeting for 6 p.m. Thursday in the hospital’s main conference room. Houser said it would probably take a few weeks before the commission is ready to schedule any public forums.

So, what's new at the foundation?

Back in December, the Danville Regional Foundation posted a release on its site that a “comprehensive assessment of the interests and concerns of the region” would take place in 2007. Wonder when that is going to take place? Seems like now would be a good time, what with economic development and the current condition of healthcare in the region as the big topics in the area.

As I read through the release (dated Dec 20, 2006), a couple comments stood out:
-“The preface of the values statement is that the Foundation “believes in the ability and necessity of individuals working together to advance the common goal. We work in partnership with people who share our commitment to expanded opportunity and increased well-being for all the region’s residents.” The values that guide the Foundation’s work are equity, excellence, engagement and openness.”
-“The four areas of focus are 1) economic transformation, 2) educational attainment, 3) health and wellness, and 4) community engagement. “The Foundation believes that long-term investments in these areas are among the most beneficial that individuals can make in themselves and that the community can make in its people,””
-“A major task for 2007 will be developing an assessment of the needs, opinions and perceptions of the community to help set priorities for the Foundation. “We must have a definitive understanding of the landscape to help the Board make difficult decisions on allocation of its resources,” said Ashby. “We are aiming high, and our goal is that our work will make a transformational difference to build a brighter future for everyone in the region.””

http://www.danvilleregionalfoundation.org/vision.html

My question is how many different groups are looking at these exact issues, and how much collaboration will there be between them? We have the Foundation doing its assessment, a City Council-convened Citizens Commission to study healthcare in the city, and Citizens for a Better Danville (who has a healthcare subcommittee, by the way). Throw in the Community Foundation of the Dan River Region, the United Way and the Future of the Piedmont Foundation (are they still around now that the IALR is open for bidness?). Bottom line...lots of groups working on the same topics. The big question (some would say the $200 million question) is are they all working in the same direction?

Three weeks...

It's been three weeks since Joint Commission visited us...I still haven't heard whether we are or we aren't....how about you?

Take a break...

Ran across this interesting read....it has nothing to do with Lifepoint or The Deal.

...or, then again, does it?

http://www.execupundit.com/2007/02/note-from-boss-to-employees-what-some.html

Letter to the editor...."Let's Do It Danville!"

To the editor:
Much has been said and written regarding our local hospital having been sold to LifePoint Hospitals Inc. without any citizen input. The hospital has been a good institution, with the exception of some cases.
For example, every hospital emergency department in America has a problem with large numbers of people using it instead of seeing their physicians during the day.
Many doctors will not see patients who have no insurance or are on Medicaid - or they are just not accepting any new patients. This greatly expands the number of local citizens who must utilize the emergency department for children with snotty noses, colds and other non-emergency problems.
Obviously, this makes for a long wait for all.
Patients with apparent heart attacks, accident victims and other true emergencies must obviously be seen prior to families with children who have colds and have brought a van load of family members to take up huge amounts of space in the waiting room. Routinely, they seem to be the most vocal citizens making complaints because they had to wait so long - and they don’t care about the actual emergency victims.
I became extremely dizzy at work at Moses Cones Hospital two years ago and ended up in the emergency room there for 12 hours.
I waited in the emergency room from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. as assessments, X-rays, lab tests, etc. were completed, read by the emergency room physicians, consulting doctors were called in, more assessments were done, more lab tests done, CT scans were done, read and reported back to consulting doctors, etc. in a seemingly endless series of doctor visits while waiting on a hard gurney.
At 9 p.m., a bed was finally open to accommodate my admission. So, long emergency room waits are not limited to Danville Regional, as many people seem to think.
Every hospital emergency room in America has long waits, perhaps rude nursing and doctor staffs (because they are overworked) and perhaps the patient must be transferred to another hospital for more sophisticated treatment.
I have noticed many local citizens complain about everything in Danville by saying “Danville isn’t this or that,” “Danville doesn’t have this or that compared to Greensboro, N.C. or Roanoke,” or “This little town has too much traffic.” The traffic would greatly increase if Danville had all “this or that” which they complain about to this newspaper.
I have spent time as an inpatient in the local hospital and would recommend Danville Regional Medical Center to anyone who has a medical condition that can be treated at this level. This hospital is not Duke University Medical Center, Baptist Medical Center, or UVA Medical Center. It is not designed to be such. It is a local hospital which does a great job, as a whole, with patients it is designed to treat.
Since LifePoint has bought out Danville Regional, we have experienced many complications in the community, with complaints regarding cutbacks in nursing staff due to LifePoint cutting expenses, in addition to administrations which weren’t listening to those complaints or had their hands tied by corporate decisions made in another state. We have had three or four administrators (I’ve lost count), all of whom have said there is light at the end of the tunnel.
During the recently televised meeting with Danville City Council, the current administrator would not answer the question about the ratio of nursing staff to patients. Some of the medical staff quickly wrote letters to this newspaper in regards to the nurse-patient ratio, which was a very simple question. This type of bull dust stance by the chief officer of Danville Regional simply makes matters worse in the community.
I agree with Coy Harville, we can literally take the damn hospital back from LifePoint and tell the local bank executives, etc., who made the decision to sell out the local community to drop dead and can be kicked out of decision-making positions.
In my opinion, our local hospital can be returned to its former self with enough citizens simply making the decision to do so. So, let’s quit whining and actually do something!
DAVID
-Danville

Technical difficulties

Sitemeter is back.

(there goes conspiracy theory #6)

"We can take it back"

Feb 25, 2007 - Danville Register & Bee

To the editor:
You are selling this community short when you editorialize that sooner or later we will have to make peace with LifePoint Hospitals Inc. (“A big job,” Feb. 18, page B8). Though it should perhaps be a goal, we do not necessarily have to make peace with LifePoint. Your newspaper, as well as Mayor Wayne Williams’ new commission, will make a serious error if other possibilities are removed from the table.
Several things can happen. LifePoint can sell Danville Regional Medical Center to another hospital chain and leave town on its own. Or the LifePoint chain can be acquired by another hospital chain, and that’s the end of LifePoint in Danville. Either scenario leaves us in the grip of a new group of outsiders who care first about profits for shareholders and second about good services for our community.
We could well be worse off than we are now.
On the other hand, strong and creative community leadership should examine the possibility of making happen what should have happened back when Danville Regional was sold to LifePoint without any input from the community. Such leadership should examine the possibility of forging a union of Danville Regional with one of the superior not-profit community hospital groups on our doorstep that are starting to attract our high-paying customers. Moses-Cone and Centra come to mind as promising possibilities.
Forging such an alliance with a compatible community hospital - in effect retrieving Danville Regional from LifePoint - would take a huge amount of money. But we have our mysterious new $200 million Danville Regional Foundation that supposedly is dedicated to the health and welfare of this area. The civic-minded folks who control it should jump for a chance to sit at the table to discuss this.
The foundation has hired North Carolina consultants to figure out how to spend the $200 million. It has hired a North Carolina headhunter to find a CEO to run the foundation. One would assume that the people in charge of the money do not have any hard and fast ideas about what to do with it.
Now is the time for a vigorous, creative examination of all possibilities, including this one. Nothing should be counted out.
The figures you cite in your editorial concerning the deterioration of staffing at Danville Regional leaves out one extremely important set of numbers. LifePoint’s rampant slashing of people also has taken a significant toll on the critically important role part-time employees have traditionally played in providing good services. Leaving them out of the calculations risks painting a brighter picture than is deserved.
One other point, from The Wall Street Journal earlier this month in a report about the purchase by private investors of the Triad Hospital chain in Texas. The Journal writer reported how very few small hospital chains were left in the United States that might be picked up by private investors (“Hospitals Look Healthy - for Now,” Feb. 6, page C3). Only two such hospital groups were cited, and one of them was - you guessed it - LifePoint Hospitals Inc., of Brentwood, Tenn.

COY HARVILLE
chairman
Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB%2FMGArticle%2FDRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193367485&path=%21news%21editor

A few words from "behind the curtain"...

Okay...there is lots of speculation in the comments that this blog is a part of LPNT's PR machine.

I'm not quite certain how you can read the posts and come to that conclusion...seems to me that, if I were a PR flack living in TN, it would be my job to blow sunshine and rainbows about LPNT up your...I mean....your way.

I am a longtime employee of DRMC who merely created this blog to create a forum for discussion about a topic where none exists. If you need to, send me a trivia question about hospital history...I can tell you about Hunter, Larry, the big stethoscope, Paxton Hall, etc, etc, etc.
As far as me being too computer savvy to be an "average citizen"....well, my stupid sitemeter is no longer available and I can't figure out how to get it back. If any of you Info Systems types know of a better (and free) sitemeter, let me know.

I'm not beholden to anybody....I just want to make sure I can keep getting a biweekly paycheck from DRMC.

Okay, enough from me....carry on...

Very well put...this deserves to be on the front page!

"While the statements in Mr. Doloresco's letter are presumably accurate, and would be what any CEO of good conscience would say, Failure to pass JCAHO accreditation would indeed hurt Lifepoint. DRMC is the largest Lifepoint facility and Lifepoint is an investor owned company.Insurance companies will not pay for services rendered at a facility which does not carry JCAHO accreditation. This would be a huge financial kick in the teeth for DRMC and Lifepoint from financial and quality of care standpoints. If your goal is to hurt Lifepoint, that would certainly garner attention.However, realize this is a double-edged sword with a giant ripple effect on the community. Think about this in the event of a JCAHO survey failure:

1. Your insurance would be no good at the facility. You and everyone you know who needed to go to the hospital would have to pay the whole bill (no managed care discount) because insurance companies would refuse to authorize treatment at a non-accredited facility.

2. Since your insurance will no longer pay for services, you and yours would have to seek hospital services elsewhere. Martinsville, South Boston, or North Carolina. Right now, you have a choice of not using DRMC. If they fail the JCAHO survey, the choice is gone. By the way, Lifepoint also owns the Martinsville hospital.

3. The survey is a reflection of the quality, monitoring, and management of care and their outcomes. Failing the survey would hurt the hospital, but it would be a direct reflection of how the people who live in Danville and work at DRMC take care of their neighbors. The social stigma of being affiliated with that would be awful.

4. If the hospital fails, and money is cut off, services and employees would go and go quickly. Can Danville handle a significant layoff of what is now the city's second largest employer?

I am sure there are other considerations, but these are just a few that come to mind. While I doubt Mr. Doloresco's personal commitment to the community and DRMC (he is new to the town), his words are true. This being said, I would make a couple of observations and address Mr. Doloresco in this blog.It is interesting that DRMC has appeared to have a revolving door in the CEO position, and that Lifepoint execs have made more than one trip to Danville to apologize for things they should have done differently. Good heads have rolled at their expense and they should be aware that in a town such as Danville, any loss of employment stirs feelings of anger and resentment within the community. There are intelligent people in Lifepoint. I beilieve a cause-and-effect and cost/benefit ananlysis would be in order before corporate and hospital administrative mouths utter future promises.Many in the community love and trust DRMC with their lives. Those you do not need worry about Mr. Doloresco. Obviously, however, there is still plenty of unrest in the community regarding our hospital. Elbow grease, not flowery, Art-ful, rah-rah speeches, is what you need to commit. Push a mop, register a patient, drive the shuttle bus. It is what you do....and continue to do, that will make the change. Your words are nice, but your actions have said so much more, and many believe the two contradict each other. True, you are the CEO and have primary responsibilities. Unfortunately, those around you fail to see you handling those well either. If they did, would you have been called before the city council the same way as one of your predecessors?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. What are you and Lifepoint doing different?

The ball is in your court. "

EDIT: Didn't mean this should be put on the front page of the newspaper....just on the front page of the blog. There are too many good points made in this to be buried on a back comment page.

Well...? Part Deux

Okay, since my earlier post where I asked if anyone knew how we did related to Joint Commission, we all got a letter from Mr. D about the survey.

Basically, this is what it says...
We completed our triennial survey...the representatives were complimentary of our staff and physicians...etc, etc.

Then, the second paragraph says "We will continue in partnership with the Joint Commission to uphold the high standards for safe, quality patient care. We have opportunities for improvement and we will present a plan for improvement to the Joint Commission."

The letter closes with compliments for the way we "pulled together to respond to the unannounced survey."

There aren't too many lines to read between in the three-paragraph letter...but what it DOESN'T say is whether we were accredited, accredited with provisions for improvement, or not accredited pending our completion of certain major action items?

I feel like we are in limbo here....does anyone know the answer?

Letter to the editor - Dr. Smith on improvements in the ER

"A team effort helped to turn things around here"
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB%2FMGArticle%2FDRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193280630&path=!news!editor

February's City Council meeting...update

Just came across this on the Register & Bee's website...it's a transcript of the City Council session back in February. For some reason, it only covers about half the session with DRMC, but it gives you a pretty good read on the evening. (Apparently, they don't take minutes in these work sessions...can only find the minutes of the actual City Council meeting on the city's website).

http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193129568&path=

Well...?

So, are we accredited or aren’t we?
Can’t tell from the letter I got from Mr. D.
Was anybody in on the closed summary meetings who knows for sure?

Notes from all over

Came across a few websites that you might be interested in...
http://www.topix.net/com/lpnt
http://www.topix.net/forum/com/lpnt
http://www.martinsvillemedia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10482
http://allnurses.com/forums/search.php?searchid=2851614

http://www.gatewayva.com/biz/virginiabusiness/magazine/yr2005/nov05/health.shtml
http://www.gatewayva.com/biz/virginiabusiness/magazine/yr2005/nov05/health2.shtml

Any volunteers...?

A big job
Danville Register and Bee
Sunday, February 18, 2007

Mayor Wayne Williams’ solution to the problems - and allegations of problems - at Danville Regional Medical Center is to form a seven-member committee called the Citizens Commission.
Committees get a bad rap because they are often seen as an attempt to turn down the heat without shedding any light on a controversial topic. But the Citizens Commission won’t have that luxury because too many people have too many questions about Danville Regional.
If the commission is going to get anything done, it needs the full backing of Williams and the rest of City Council. A good way to ensure that happens - and to keep the pressure on Danville Regional - would be to appoint council members Pete Castiglione and Sherman Saunders.
Castiglione and Saunders asked the toughest questions of hospital officials during a recent meeting with the entire City Council. It would be hard to imagine the commission moving forward without those two pushing it along. Castiglione and Saunders would give the Citizens Commission instant credibility.
Williams envisions the group meeting “until the job’s done,” but that could mean a lot of things. Just understanding where Danville Regional Medical Center is today would be a good place to start:
-- When LifePoint Hospitals Inc. bought Danville Regional Medical Center in July 2005, the hospital had the equivalent of 1,357 full-time employees. As of last month, that figure had dropped to 1,132 - a 16.6 percent drop;
-- The loss of registered nurses mirrors that trend - from the equivalent of nearly 300 RNs in July 2005 to about 242 last month. That’s a decrease of 19.5 percent; and
-- Hospital admissions in August 2005 numbered 1,003, but had dropped to 820 a year later. In January of this year, admissions were 952, compared with 945 a year earlier in January 2006.
LifePoint officials insist they have no corporate formula that they’re trying to shoehorn Danville Regional into. To the credit of the current CEO, Art Doloresco, the hospital has shown improvement in the Emergency Department. More people are using it, yet wait times and the percentage of people leaving without care is down.
If that’s an indication of how Doloresco and LifePoint plan to solve other problems and complaints, the work of the Citizens Commission could be easier.
Eventually, our community is going to have to make its peace with LifePoint Hospitals Inc., one way or another. Given the turmoil that has marked the company’s first 19 months here, it’s clear that peace hasn’t been reached.
Fewer admissions, fewer employees and fewer registered nurses - the mayor’s proposed Citizens Commission will have its hands full looking into what’s happening at Danville Regional Medical Center.

It's been a crazy week...

Sorry about the lack of posts….too much going on this week with Joint Commission.

So, how are things in your area? If Joint Commission came through your department, how did it go?

Wonder when we will get to hear the results….the word is that the summary will be given in a closed session. That’s too bad.

How about a little good news?

Regardless of how you feel about LifePoint, The Deal, or any of the other issues discussed on this blog, there is a good opportunity to visit the hospital and show your support for the employees there. Drop by later this week for the open house of the new fifth floor in the “A” building. This is a landmark occasion as yet another unit can be moved out of an older building. Plus, a lot of employees have been working extra hard to make the open house possible.

Times are 5 – 7 pm Friday, 9am – 12 noon on Saturday, and 12 noon – 3pm on Sunday.

The R&B did an article about the unit and the open house:
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193192006&path=

It’s been quite a few years since we celebrated the grand opening of the A building and the new front entrance, so stop in and see what’s new.

Citizens Commission...

If you haven't seen this morning's paper, check out the headline on the front page:

http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193191815

Pssst....

I hear Joint Commission is here today.

Talking amongst ourselves is great....

....but where are we going to go from here?

Let's talk solutions.

So....What's your take?

I can't quite decide how to feel about the letter that we all received. Should I be encouraged that they're communicating with us? Is it just PR fluff? Or....well....is it just me or does it seem like something is being pinned on us?

If you don't have your copy handy....read the copy I posted in the right column. -->

Ya know....for the trouble it took to write the letter and mail it to all of us, they could've just had a face-to-face with us. Just a thought......

We couldn't agree with you more, Bill.

From an article in the June 30, 2006 Nashville Business Journal entitled "New CEO will shift focus of LifePoint"

"The change in management is more about style than strategy as LifePoint tries to work with physicians and employees and be a good citizen in its individual communities. As the new CEO, Carpenter plans to visit the individual hospitals in the coming months.
"'I want to go out in the hospitals and sit down with the leadership teams... and the employees, and I want to sit and listen to them and learn 'what do we need to do and what can I do?"'Carpenter says. "

http://nashville.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2006/07/03/story2.html

"We get letters..." Lotsa letters in Sunday's R&B

Lots of letters to the editor in tomorrow’s R&B….below are just a few notable quotes.
I encourage you to visit the R&B site to read them in their entirety:
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB%2FMGArticle%2FDRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193130523&path=%21news%21editor


Problems today, but hope for future improvement
“I would also like to clear up a misconception regarding doctors sending patients out of our community to seek health care elsewhere. It is often stated the doctors are sending patients out of town to other hospitals. In reality, this is happening in a minority of cases. Patients are going elsewhere, but not because the doctors are sending them. We are only following the wishes of our patients and their families. We respect our patients, and if they feel the hospital is unsafe, we must do as requested and send them elsewhere.”

“Councilman Pete Castiglione hit the nail on the head when he stated it is not equipment or new buildings that make a world-class hospital, it is retaining and training excellent nurses who are there 24 hours a day when patients need them. Fortunately, LifePoint executives, including Jess Judy, are beginning to see this and have taken a positive step by bringing in an interim chief nursing officer to fill a gapping void in our Nursing Department.”

Council needed to step in
“I am very happy that Danville City Council has decided to investigate the mess, which we are now burdened. Maybe it can get LifePoint to do a better job - or agree to sell our facility back to us so that a way can be determined to bring better hospital care to our region. I wonder! But let them try. We should all be ready to assist any endeavor to improve the existing situation.”

Losing good doctors
“For whatever reason, the board of the prior Danville Regional Medical Center chose to sell the hospital to a for-profit organization, LifePoint Hospitals Inc. I realize profit is the keystone for any successful business, whether it is formed as nonprofit or for-profit organization. In the case of LifePoint and Danville Regional, let us hope that management has not allowed the profit motive to blind them to their mission of effective health care for our citizens.”

So long, ‘Sundance Kid’
“While we are all dismayed by the deplorable condition of our hospital facilities, sold out, apparently, for business reasons rather than for the good of the people it serves, most local physicians are not abandoning their patients. Rather, they are remaining to give their best care as they struggle to improve hospital conditions. They are professionals and generous human beings who put their patients’ care first. Drs. Caldwell and Brotherton are leaders in this regard.”

What is ‘world class’?
“I understand that the City Council plans to call for another meeting very soon - again addressing hospital problems - and I hope it will be held in a large enough room to accommodate not only the hospital CEO and associates, but also some doctors, nurses, past patients and all city and county residents who are really interested in exceptional health care from a truly “world class organization.”

"A time for answers"

Editorial - Danville Register & Bee - Feb 11, 2007

Art Doloresco and the other LifePoint Hospitals Inc. officials at Tuesday’s special session of Danville City Council could have had a much tougher visit to the Municipal Building.
The time was limited and the crowd was muted by Mayor Wayne Williams - spectators in the packed council chambers weren’t allowed to ask questions or react to what was said.
It wasn’t the first time Danville City Council met with the chief executive officer of Danville Regional Medical Center, and given the passions and anger surrounding the issues, it probably won’t be the last. City Council, which had no opinion on the sale of Danville Regional when it was pending in 2005, has been pushed to do something by the public it serves.
To its credit, City Council has a unique opportunity to use its position to create a forum for community concerns. To the credit of Doloresco and LifePoint, they appear willing to address those concerns.
The bottom line is quality health care - and LifePoint’s management of the hospital since the deal was finalized on July 1, 2005.
LifePoint doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. At Tuesday’s meeting, it was revealed the company spent $26 million on the local hospital to complete the terms of the original sale - the purchase of new equipment and the construction of two floors in the Wyatt tower. Given that kind of investment, it’s not likely LifePoint would turn around and sell the hospital.
At the same time, the community’s frustration with this company’s management doesn’t appear to be going anywhere either.
The toughest questions asked Tuesday came from council members Sherman Saunders and Pete Castiglione, primarily about the number of nurses who work at the hospital and the ratio of nurses to patients. The questions echoed letters to this newspaper about the hospital being short-staffed.
If Tuesday’s meeting with LifePoint officials was meant to answer all the questions and resolve all the issues, it failed miserably. If it was, as Williams said, a way to “start the process of finding solutions,” then it was worth the time and effort.
Doloresco admitted that the transition to LifePoint’s management of Danville Regional “has been difficult.” But LifePoint has owned Danville Regional for one and a half years.
Danville needs a hospital its citizens can be confident in and LifePoint Hospitals Inc. needs the support of the community it now serves.

Deja vu....all over again

Yes, I know I have posted this article recently....but after reading the media coverage of the City Council meeting this week, the sense of deja vu is overwhelming.

http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137833952500&path

Read it again...then read the recent coverage....

Why aren't we further along than we are?

"We have other choices"

(Feb 8)
To the editor:
Well, well, it sounds like someone got fed up and tattled on the local health care mess. Now it will be interesting to see the mice scamper to protect the situation.
I see Danville City Council is already in defensive mode - what was that city tax figure, $1 million? That figure probably does not look so large to the mayor now if his patients refuse to accept health care at the local hospital, which is what a recent article seemed to be implying.
So now we get the local CEO for LifePoint putting on a “dog and pony show,” aided and abetted by Danville City Council. At least the community should get a few chuckles from this because I would bet the picture of LifePoint painted for public consumption will not much match the reality of usage.
Cutting the ratio of staff to inpatients seems to be a standard technique utilized when a for-profit company takes over a nonprofit hospital, based on a research paper I have read. So I totally believe the statements about this made by Dr. Stewart Sharp. Besides, I suspect there are few people in this area that do not know someone employed at the hospital, thus getting an accurate report on what is actually happening there. Anyone above the level of kindergarten knows what happens to inpatient care as a result.
Sooner or later, LifePoint’s executives will come to realize this area has the choice of a number of excellent hospitals and local patients are not going to be forced into an institution they do not wish to enter for health care. This situation may be unique among the properties owned by LifePoint. What will LifePoint do when that fact is finally absorbed, because my impression is that LifePoint is accustomed to its patient base at a hospital being captive, in the sense that no other competitive facility is in the area?
HILDRED
Danville

Followup article in the R&B today

Critical concerns
"Poll shows an increase in overall quality at Danville Regional, but that does little to change criticism from council members"

http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193091576

Local media coverage of Feb 6 Council meeting

Register & Bee
"Council Grills Hospital CEO"
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193067659


WAKG
"A year-and-a-half after Danville Regional Medical Center was purchased by Lifepoint, there have been four permanent and interim CEO’S at the hospital. That was one of the issues pointed out last night as City Council held an hour-long Q-AND-A with current hospital CEO Art Doloresco. He focused on positive recent changes at the hospital…most notably, their six-month emphasis on the Emergency Room. Doloresco says they’ve cut the average ER wait time in half. He says DRMC also scored well in a recent patient satisfaction survey, and have committed more than 26 million dollars to capital improvements at the hospital. But Councilman Pete Castiglione says the problems run deeper than that. He claims a previous CEO lied to city leaders, and suggested it would take some time to rebuild trust. Others were concerned that the hospital’s staff, particularly the nurses, were overworked. And they worried that the public has lost confidence in the hospital."

WTF?

Uh.... trying to figure this one out. Got this announcement about a new staff member today...the e-mail came from the C-level... and I quote...

"Danny comes to us with over 25 years of experience in [name of department], and will an integral part of our continues commitment to our mission of Proving Healthcare Excellence Close to Home."

WTF? Are they writing these things using Mad Libs?

High fives all around....there's good news after all!

So, Mr. Doloresco stated that there were departments in the hospital with high morale. So, let's hear from you. How are things in your world?

Stay tuned....

Well, this should be an interesting evening....just got a message from a co-worker who went to the session that City Council is having with Art....seems the conference room is full of DRMC employees.
Stay tuned for an update as the evening progresses....

UPDATE
The R&B site has video of the presentation to Council
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193062673

Also, WSET 13 was there...coverage on their site at the link below.
http://new.wset.com/news/stories/0207/395058.html

Lifepoint/DRMC coverage in Martinsville today….

One thing I am trying to figure out….did the folks in Martinsville go through a painful transition when they were bought by Lifepoint? If not, was it because that hospital was closer in size and scale to Lifepoint’s typical hospital? Or, did they go through a transition when bought by Province, the owner before Lifepoint? If any of you are familiar with the deal there, please post a comment.

LifePoint under Fire in Danville
The Danville Register is reporting that Dr. Stewart Sharp, a Danville oncologist, is closing his practice and moving to Texas because he is concerned about LifePoint’s commitment to patient care. Sharp claims the number of patients at the Danville Hospital is decreasing because of deteriorating health care and the nurse-to-patient ratio has risen from 1 to 5 to as high as 1 to 8.
Hospital officials responded to Sharp’s remarks by saying they were committed to providing excellent care, but didn’t dispute his accusations.
The situation has gotten so bad that the Danville City Council has requested a meeting Tuesday night with the Hospital’s CEO. The Danville Mayor, who is also a physician, said “It is time City Council take action on behalf of our citizens, first to determine the facts, then to offer solutions.
LifePoint also owns the Martinsville Hospital.

http://martinsvilledaily.com/2007/02/04/lifepoint-under-fire-in-danville/

The R&B....and contact your City Council

Good coverage in the Register & Bee today...a few notable quotes...

Questioning care, doctor makes exit
"In the meantime, Sharp said, he spoke with hospital CEO Art Doloresco and asked him when things would change. 'My impression from talking with the CEO was that people here needed to accept the standards of practice that the business plan demanded,' Sharp said. 'Nurses had to learn to do more with less, ancillary staffing would be cut accordingly and many services (would be) provided by contract services from non-employed vendors. It did not seem to me that we would be able to address the problems such as less frequent direct patient contact with nurses that cause many of our competitors to be more desirable to patients.' "
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193014495

Council to meet with hospital CEO
" 'Rumors intermixed with facts are concerning our citizens and affecting their health care decisions,' said Williams, an ear, nose and throat specialist, in the letter. “It is time City Council take action on behalf of our citizens, first to determine the facts, then to offer solutions.”
During a phone interview Friday, the mayor said he is hearing concerns from both citizens and healthcare professionals, ranging from people questioning the quality of care at Danville Regional to staffing issues."
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193014544

Now, it's your turn...
So...maybe this is a good time to give Mayor Williams and the other members of Council a call or an email and share your point of view. Here is the link to the City Council website. Scroll down to the bottom third of the page for an email address for each member.
http://www.danville-va.gov/officials.asp?menuid=2816&sub1menuid=2841

Also, be sure to visit the articles on the R&B's website and post your opinion of the story.

Okay gang...let's show a little class

Being able to post anonymously is a great thing...it enables employees of a company to express opinions or facts about their employer without fearing retribution. Unfortunately, it also enables folks to take potshots at others (be they public figures or fellow commenters) with little regard. Now that some of the comments on this blog are starting to border on sophomoric, I guess it's time to talk about what's cool and what's not.

Frank, honest opinion about what's going on at DRMC? -- Cool
Questioning a rumor that is floating around the halls or around town? -- Cool
Presenting a public appeal for the powers-that-be to help out? -- Cool
Flaming another commenter because you don't agree? -- NOT cool
Resorting to slander or "name-calling"? -- NOT cool.

I'd really hate to start deleting comments or having to click "pass" or "fail" for each one, but...it's my sandbox. If you don't care for that, sandboxes are free on www.blogger.com.

To end on a happy note....as Frank and Ed used to say, "...thank you for your support".

Edit: Re: your comment Scalpel...I completely agree, passion is a good thing. It's just like I tell my kids, one can respectfully disagree, but be respectful.

From the outside looking in...

Now that politicos such as Coy Harville have started expressing concerns about healthcare issues in the area, it's interesting to look back at some of the dialogue between Lifepoint and Danville City Council (especially considering that Dr. Wayne Williams has a foot in both worlds as a physician and as mayor). So, on this (almost) anniversary of then-CEO Tod Lambert's appearance before City Council, I thought it would be interesting to revisit the dialogue between Lifepoint leadership and Council.

From the Feb 7, 2006 minutes of City Council:
"Dr. Williams recalled that several months ago, LifePoint, Inc. purchased Danville Regional Medical Center. After the purchase some changes were made and many of those changes led to significant concerns among hospital staff, physicians, and the community. Dr. Williams advised that two and one-half weeks ago, a meeting between physicians and hospital administration led to very open and honest discussions that ended on a positive note. Dr. Williams felt the community needed to hear from LifePoint and he introduced Tod Lambert, CEO, Danville Regional Medical Center. "

Lambert went on to tell Council "that good patient care was still available at the hospital and LifePoint was in the process of rectifying a number of things that were done too quickly and without adequate communication. He stated if anything was carried away from the meeting tonight, let it be that the hospital administration knows mistakes were made in the plan for the hospital’s operation and employee treatment. Mr. Lambert said one of the high fives the hospital was so proud of for dealing with its patients, staff and community got ahead of the other four. Fiscal responsibility, which is the last of the high fives, became the first in the way the transition was approached. "

So, flash forward seven months...from the September 5, 2006 City Council minutes...
"Mayor Williams stated many problems had not yet been addressed and had reached a critical point. Dr. Williams said changes needed to be made and soon...[a]t the request of Vice-Mayor Saunders, Mr. Doloresco stated he would keep Council updated on these and other issues involving DRMC."

Seems to me, it's about time for an update. Let's keep tuned in to City Council meeting agendas...perhaps it would be good for some employees (and maybe recent patients) to be in the gallery when Lifepoint meets with our city leaders.

If you'd like to read the full text of the City Council minutes, they can be found here:
Feb 7, 2006
http://www.danville-va.gov/l_City_CM.asp?menuid=2816&sub1menuid=2841&sub2menuid=2907&cid=5082
Sept 5, 2006
http://www.danville-va.gov/l_City_CM.asp?menuid=2816&sub1menuid=2841&sub2menuid=2907&cid=9699

Also, in an article in the Register & Bee the next day:
"But Councilman Phillip Smith said he thought LifePoint should have known what it was getting into when it bought Danville Regional. He said that the company had a chance to see the size and clinical sophistication at the hospital when scouting the facility prior to purchasing it.
“I feel that a lot of the damage has been done,” he said. “I hope you all can put the pieces back together.”"
http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB/MGArticle/DRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137833952500&path